1) E-Cigarettes We don’t study e-cigarettes as part of our course when we look at methods of reducing addiction. That doesn’t mean to say though that people do not use them as a way of reducing their use of tobacco. The problem is that the evidence about how safe they are is mixed and complex. […]

1) Tobacco And Psychosis One of the evaluation points we use when evaluating methods of reducing addiction in relation to tobacco is that many people use tobacco to help them deal with mental health problems. Methods of reducing tobacco use are likely to be ineffective if the problem underlying tobacco use is somewhere else. This […]

1) More On Zimbardo The controversy about Zimbardo’s study rolls on. Here is a link to a piece in the BPS Research Digest. What’s particularly valuable is that you can read a pre-print of the research by Haslam and colleagues here. The idea that the study is a study of obedience rather than conformity is […]

1) Researching E-Cigarettes This article explores some of the issues with researching the effects of e-cigarettes. To understand the long-term harm, researchers need to find people who use e-cigarettes who have never smoked. That turns out to be difficult because they don’t want to volunteer to take part. 2) Contagious Behaviour This article is […]

1) The Mind And The Brain This episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage includes a discussion of mind and brain. Wide ranging and surprising. 2) And Also On The Radio …. This programme takes what we think we know about Pavlov and challenges it. 3) Gender And The Brain This article looks at […]

1) Smartphones This article looks at the effect of smartphones on children and adolescents. It challenges claims by Jean Twenge, whose work we look at in the context of locus of control, about the damaging effect of phones on well-being. It’s useful for us in a couple of ways. Firstly, it raises some research methods […]

1) Biological Rhythms As an introduction to what biological rhythms are and why we have them, this is pretty good. 2) How do anti-depressants actually work? This article neatly sums up what we do and don’t know about how antidepressants work. We no longer study biological treatments for depression as part of our course […]

1) Varenicline vs Nicotine Replacement Therapy This paper deals with the latest research on Varenicline as a treatment for nicotine addiction. It’s a big study with records used from GP practices across the UK. There were 287 079 patient records accessed, with follow up over a four year period. Patients’ status of smokers is established by self-report: […]

1) ADHD You can listen to a discussion about ADHD in this episode of All In The Mind. There’s a link to a TV documentary here. ADHD used just to be diagnosed in children. There are now adults receiving diagnosis who were not diagnosed as children. This mirrors developments in the diagnosis of depression. Until […]

1) Common Misconceptions About Evolution This SciShow video has some useful things to say about evolution and more generally about what we mean by the word theory. SciShow say that they are going to set up a channel specifically for Psychology. Here’s a sample. 2) Ways Of Studying The Brain The video behind this […]